My friends, the preliminary games are in the books and it's finally time for Team North America to get to work, and for our Nation-wide coverage to begin. The nice part about cheering for Team North America is that this team provides one of the few opportunities for Nation Network readers to come together and support the same team... well... unless you're a Canucks fan. Sorry, CanucksArmy.

Recently, an hockey analytics conference was held at Rochester Institute of Technology (known as RITHAC). There were multiple very interesting presentations by smart and interesting people among the analytics community, nice enough to share their smart-ness with the rest of us SMRT people.

I want to focus today on the presentation made by Micah Black McCurdy on Gold Drafting, an oft-debated model for how to determine draft order. Specifically, I want to look at how it would have affected the Leafs' past drafts.

It's opening day at the World Cup of Hockey, and all the gloom, doom, debates, and debacles have been thrown out the window. Whether this oddball event makes any sense is irrelevant; all that matters is that the puck is on the ice, and so are the world's best.

"World's best" is a key phrase there. As always, the pressure is higher for Canada to succeed than anybody else. They're the perennial Olympic powerhouse, and while the average degree of difficulty has tilted up, a team with a tradition of dominance should be able to shake such a roadblock off.

If today's game was any indication, they're going to have no trouble doing just that, as they cruised to an easy 6-0 win against the Czech Republic.

The 2016 World Cup of Hockey officially kicked off today with an afternoon game between Team USA and Team Europe. Team Europe, you'll remember, is the hodge podge team with NHL players from 8 different nations competing under one strange logo. Team USA, on the other hand, is made up of players all from America, but somehow they missed the memo that this is a best-on-best tournament, because I don't see Tyler Johnson or Justin Faulk on the roster. They're also playing with the massive handicap of having John Tortorella at the helm.

If you missed the opening game of this excellent tournament, fear not! We have a handy recap here just for you!

It is time for the hockey! And tonight, we get to see Team Canada—the favourite entering the World Cup of Hockey—against the Czech Republic. Sidney Crosby leads his team into a three-week battle that should result in another victory for the land of ice and snow—and they can do it before the snow flies.